How to contact an IT professional

Introduction

Dear Marketers,

For some reason, many of you do not know how to contact an IT professional. So here are some steps to keep you off IT's black list.

Steps
(3 total)

1

Cold Calls

Cold calls are a great way to come across as a salesmen fishing for business. If you are calling because you found their number, without them giving it to you, chances are good that the person you are calling is already using another product, or they will not be in the market for your services. If this is the case, you are just being annoying, and everyone's time was just wasted.

If by chance you got an IT pro's number from a webinar that they watched, keep it to one call. Leave a voice mail if they don't answer. Say your pitch, and do not call again. If you are lucky enough to get an IT pro to watch something about your product, the last thing you want to do is scare them away by harassing them. If they remember you as the company who won't stop calling them, chances are good they won't consider your product.

2

Emails

Emails follow pretty similar rules as phone calls. One will do.

In this case, if you send us multiples, you are guaranteed to be added to the spam list. When this happens, say goodbye to your ability to contact us this way. You essentially just burned a bridge.

Other ways to get your email sent to the spam folder, is make it look like spam. While your flashy images may look nice on your end, many of us don't download those when viewing your message. This makes your emails look horrid, and makes them look like spam.

A good way to get around this is keep it simple. Keep it light, don't pile on the sales pitch. People are much more likely to read your emails, if they sound like a person wrote them. Introduce yourself, and offer assistance if needed. Maybe give a brief description of what your product does.

Just don't include to much of a pitch. IT does not get its facts about your product from your emails. They will go to your website, look around for reviews, or talk to people they know about their experience with you. So you don't need to summarize your entire product, just keep it to a sentence or two, and they can look up the specifics.

3

Do not contact IT pros on personal social media.

This is one of the worst sins of the bunch. Do not contact or ask for people to sign up on Facebook, Twitter, Etc... This is the equivalent of sending ads for your business options to their home address. You probably don't want IT pros to show up at your house asking for pricing quotes, so don't go after our personal lives. Instead use professional places like Spiceworks, or LinkedIn.

Conclusion

Basically, advertising needs to be done as simply as possible. IT pros more than likely already know who you are. So make sure your info is easy to get to, and stop with the repeated spam.

IT likes to come to you, not the other way around. So if you do approach us, don't go full spam bot on us. Be personal, and be aware of how your repeated attempts come across.

Cold calls are the worst
Call twice a day on a number that isn't even related to IT. Get people to transfer to IT because they are bad at screening calls. Wasting their time. Then leave no voice-mail.
Thankful for the PBX blacklist.

#1. I guess it's no coincidence that SpiceHeads don't include phone numbers in their profile? :) Overall, this is sound advice. For marketers and sales people that ask, "Well, what am I supposed to do?" I'd say, "Evolve."

Thank you for this how (not) to do list! I know both sides very well - the marketer (selling our services and products) and the marketers aim, the IT pro (hard selling People trying to sell ads and Hardware and, and, and). I haven´t got the philosophers ‘stone to solve this difficult issue at all. The balancing act remains!